IN A WORLD… C+
USA (93 mi) 2013 d: Lake Bell Official site
A somewhat offbeat, thoroughly likeable, but inordinately
generic indie film about the competitive world of trailer voiceovers, a
traditionally male-oriented business in Hollywood apparently owned by Don
LaFontaine, an American voice actor famous for making over 5000 trailers
along with hundreds of thousands of television commercials before his death in
2008, opening the door for new talent that includes women, generating a crack
in the glass ceiling, a premise that should work a lot better than it does. While Bell’s ability to do voices is
hilariously goofy, especially when she’s seen with her hand recorder tracking
down the sounds of people on the street speaking in different accents,
literally mesmerized by the diverse inflections of the human voice. Writer, director, producer, and lead actress
Lake Bell suggest a major investment into what must be a highly personalized
project. Often feeling like it wants to
be a Miranda July movie, but the plain truth is it’s not nearly as quirky or
inventive, feeling more drawn by the numbers despite winning the Sundance Waldo
Salt Screenwriting Award, supposedly “For its laugh out loud comedic moments,
its memorably drawn characters and its shrewd social commentary.” Outside of the obvious message that women can
do equally well what men do in the voiceover business, the material is
surprisingly thin, taking a cynically self-centered, dysfunctional family drama
and turning it into a gooey and marshmellowy feelgood moment by the end that is
the equivalent of a group hug. Based on
everything that comes before, nothing changes, as it takes more than a public
thank you to repair a lifetime of permanently undercutting generations of broken
dreams.
Fred Melamed is excellent as the self righteously
overbearing but continually deluded father Sam, the man that got his daughter
Carol (Lake Bell) interested in doing movie voiceovers in the first place,
where she’s following in her father’s footsteps, but he constantly reminds her
the industry isn’t ready yet for a woman’s voice. Yet the film is shown through the eyes of his
daughter, who has a ridiculously expressive range of voices, some laugh out loud
funny while others express the dulcet tones of a professional announcer. While her voice range is the most appealing
aspect of the film, accentuated in the trailer 'In a World...' Trailer -
YouTube (2:27), Bell also tries to write a meaningful drama about people
too nervously self-absorbed to connect with one another. While Sam is about to receive a lifetime
achievement award by the trailer voiceover industry, he’s still fuming about
being overshadowed by Don LaFontaine throughout his entire career. And while he’s attempting to pass the mantle of
his own success to his filthy rich protégée Gustav (Ken Marino), there remain unresolved
family issues in his own life, as he’s got a groupie girlfriend Jamie
(Alexandra Holden) who’s twenty years younger than he is, something that makes
his daughters gag with disgust, still resentful about the way he abandoned
their dead mother years ago. After
kicking his own daughter out of the house to make room for Jamie, she has
nowhere else to turn but to her sister Dani (Michaela Watkins), who’s in the
midst of a marital crisis with her husband Moe (Rod Corddry). Everyone’s life seems to be in constant turmoil,
all having their own personal issues to deal with.
Despite Carol’s obvious talent, she’s relegated to the role
of a speech coach, amusingly seen helping Eva Longoria learn a Cockney accent
for a movie scene while also recording her own trailer, aided by her trusted
confidant Louis (Demetri Martin), from Ang Lee’s TAKING WOODSTOCK (2009), who
is the recording engineer with a secret crush on Carol, but she is too
oblivious to see. Carol’s sister Dani
works as a hotel concierge, where the Irish brogue of Jason O’Mara, one of the
guests at the hotel, inflames the desires of each sister, one for the voice
inflection, the other for the constant barrage of flirtatious flattery. When Moe finds out she’s been returning the
attention, their marriage is suddenly on fragile grounds. And when Carol lands a prestigious job, the
first women to do so, her father nearly chokes on his food, as this does not
conform to his view of the universe.
Being the competitive bastard that he is, he sets his own ambitions over
his daughters and attempts to undermine her success by scoring the job through
back door contacts. Little of this is
pretty, or funny, but is a scrambled mess of foul intentions and misread
motives where the overriding desire to succeed at work clouds their judgment in
personal relationships, all of which feeds into an overly somber feeling of gloom
hovering over the lighter, more comedic moments. The feelgood superficiality of the finale
will be more than some can bear, where Geena Davis, of all people, rarely seen
in movies anymore, offers the cliché’d moment of female empowerment where
women’s voiceovers in trailers will make a world of difference in the next
generation. Not sure this repairs the
damage of a lifetime of tarnished ambitions, both personally and
professionally, but to the confidently assured sound of Tears for Fears Tears For Fears -
"Everybody Wants To Rule The World" - ORIGINAL .. (3:11), not to
mention an absurdly comic trailer for the futuristic mega million blockbuster The Amazon Games that features an
uncredited Cameron Diaz as the masked Amazon leader, rest assured the future is
a much better place.
